Ireland's remarkable economic performance in recent years has been widely acclaimed abroad and greeted at home with justifiable pride and optimism. The growth has been particularly noteworthy in the knowledge-based sector, where human capital is the key resource, a resource in which Ireland has shown it has the competitive edge.

The figures tell the story. Over the past decade, there has been a 35 per cent increase in high technology manufacturing. There have also been substantial increases in the levels of employment in health, education, and public administration. But the most dramatic increases have taken place in the areas commonly described as internationally traded services, principally software, telecommunications and financial services, where the growth has exceeded 400 per cent in 10 years.

But there has been a serious negative side to the generally favourable economic trends of recent years. While knowledge-driven industries have proliferated and flourished, there has been a steady decline in low-skilled sectors, where Ireland has few competitive advantages.

That trend is accelerating as emerging countries attract more of this kind of industry with the lure of low wages.

The consequence has been a steep rise in unemployment among those with low levels of education and training, and, worse still, the unemployment has tended to be long term.

Once again the figures are revealing. A recent survey of the long-term unemployed shows that 74 per cent had not completed second-level education, and little more than 5 per cent had proceeded beyond the Leaving Certificate.

Ireland's economic success has therefore been marred by the emergence of a burgeoning body of long term unemployed who face an ongoing decline in their traditional forms of work and lack the qualifications to cope with the knowledge revolution.

The problem is most acute in Dublin, where more than 90,000 people were unemployed in 1995, an increase of 337 per cent over the past 25 years.

It is further concentrated in particular areas of the city, in certain regions in the centre and in a number of housing estates in suburban districts. Dublin has now developed ghettos of poverty and disadvantage of an alarming scale, where unemployment commonly runs as high as 50 per cent, where there are many who have never held a job and have little prospect of doing so in the future, where the sense of hopelessness and of social alienation and exclusion is high, and likely to worsen as disparities in income distribution become more evident and the economic boom appears to pass them by.

The situation is not only creating class divisions, but is in danger of creating a caste system, permanent divides that have the seeds of social disruption and lawlessness.

There is a classic vicious circle at work, perpetuating the problem. Young people born into the conditions prevailing in these areas are caught in a poverty trap, with little chance, in an educational system not yet geared to the needs of the disadvantaged, of acquiring the skills ruthlessly demanded by the knowledge age.

The figures tell the story yet again. Up to 60 per cent of young people in Dublin's disadvantaged regions leave school at age 15 or younger; little more than 20 per cent complete second level; as few as 3 per cent go on to third level, and a mere handful of these enter university.

The problem is a big one, affecting perhaps as many as 150,000 people in Dublin alone. It involves fundamental questions of social justice, which no society concerned to preserve its moral moorings can ignore. It is a blot on our affluent society and a social time-bomb, certain to spawn social alienation and high levels of crime unless it is addressed radically and urgently.

Efforts have, of course, been made, and a variety of programmes, among them successful initiatives such as the Home School Liaison Scheme, Youthstart, the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme, have made some impact.

But the size and seriousness of the problem requires a more concentrated, focused and integrated approach. The urban areas of greatest need must be designated for a special, comprehensive onslaught on the specific difficulties of these areas through a series of co-ordinated, tailored initiatives.

The long-term emphasis must be on education, the only means in the knowledge age of opening the poverty trap and reaching towards equality of opportunity.

The teacher/pupil ratio in the schools in these designated areas must be cut drastically; in-service programmes should be provided for teachers focusing on the particular challenges they will encounter; counsellors and social workers should be assigned to each school or group of schools with the task of helping students to stay in school and of tracking any who drop out to ensure that they are placed in a suitable training programme.

New training programmes geared to the needs of young people in these areas need to be developed to ensure that those who fail to achieve a Leaving Certificate or whose qualifications on leaving school are inadequate to secure them a job acquire marketable skills and that those completing such courses are assisted in getting employment and tracked until they have secured their first job.

Increased efforts must also be made to encourage far larger numbers of students to proceed to a third-level education. It is at this level that equality of opportunity is most visibly absent from the Irish education system.

Financial disincentives must be removed through the provision of scholarships to supplement the wholly inadequate level of existing maintenance grants; third-level colleges will need to get involved with the schools and work with them to help students of ability achieve the standards necessary to proceed to third level; access or bridging courses will need to be developed by the colleges to upgrade the qualifications of those who want a third-level education and have the capacity to achieve it, but whose performance has fallen short of requirements. A special entry system should be provided for those who successfully complete such programmes.

It is only through a blitzkrieg of this kind, managed perhaps by a special task force, that, I believe, any real progress can be made in breaking the vicious cycle of poverty in urban ghettos.

General, across the board measures will prove too diluted to solve such a very particular and intractable social dilemma.

Finally, public services and initiatives will have to be complemented by private effort, from voluntary groups such as the existing Partnerships, from business and industry, from educational institutions, from the communities themselves.